Bring Holiness To Marriage

1 Corinthians 7.12
Now, I will speak to the rest of you, though I do not have a direct command from the Lord. If a fellow believer has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to continue living with him, he must not leave her.
¹³And if a believing woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to continue living with her, she must not leave him.
¹⁴For the believing wife brings holiness to her marriage, and the believing husband brings holiness to his marriage. Otherwise, your children would not be holy, but now they are holy.
¹⁵(But if the husband or wife who isn’t a believer insists on leaving, let them go. In such cases the believing husband or wife is no longer bound to the other, for God has called you[f] to live in peace.)
¹⁶Don’t you wives realize that your husbands might be saved because of you? And don’t you husbands realize that your wives might be saved because of you?

Bringing ‘holiness’ to marriage - we have probably one of two responses:
1.) Wow, look at the benefits to bringing God’s holiness to my marriage, I’d like to know more about THAT!
2.) Yeah, right. We can’t even bring all the groceries home to our marriage, let alone holiness.
The “practical” reality of our lives collides with this distant idealized imaginary life from the Bible and it never stands a chance because our lives are constructed around the pedestal of our preferences.
The question is, do you have marriage or do you have a marriage-adjacent relationship.

The Bible says in Ephesians 5.31
the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”
³²This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.

Is your marriage telling Jesus’ story or your story?

Ephesians 5.21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Isaiah 5.16
“The holiness of God will be displayed by his righteousness.”

1 Corinthians 1.2
…To you who have been called by God to be his own holy people.
He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 5.21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
²²For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church.
²⁴As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
²⁵For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her
²⁶to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.
²⁷He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.
²⁸In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself.
²⁹No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.
³⁰And we are members of his body.
³¹As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”
³²This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.
³³So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

1 Corithians 7.14
For the believing wife brings holiness to her marriage, and the believing husband brings holiness to his marriage.

If my life is set apart from the culture, sin nature, etc to follow Jesus, then when I’m married, my marriage doesn’t reflect the marriages of the culture or sin nature.
I get a holy marriage, one that God prescribes.

1 John 3.16
We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us.

Longevity isn’t love. Longsuffering isn’t love.
Self denial isn’t love.
Jesus is real love because anyone can imitate forms of love, but only Jesus is sinless, pure, and holy love.
We must have the admiration, adoration, service and submission to Christ to live for anything but our own preferences.

Philippians 2.5 and following:
“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.”
A believer, a holy person looks at Ephesians 5.33
So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Ephesians 5.22
For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
²³ For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church.
²⁴As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

The husband’s directions for the same goal of honoring Christ is an indepth description of love:

Ephesians 5
²⁵For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her
²⁶to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.
²⁷He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.
²⁸In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself.
²⁹No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.

Galatians 2:20
My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

So we boast about what God has done for us and in us.
We’re not “just lucky”.
We live in the ways that God made for us, we submit to each other because Jesus is holy and made it so we could - even when no one else in the world may be doing any of that!
Too bad they’re not curious about God’s promises and seeing that his instructions for a great marriage actually do MAKE a great marriage.
That’s our boast, our brag: God is great and His ways are perfect!

Start here:
Ephesians 5.21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.